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Monday, April 30, 2012

Marilyn's Choice SHOP OF THE MONTH Critique

Caught My Eye Designs opened shop almost one year ago. Joyce the shop owner has built up a positive reputation for herself through her sales . She is now in 117 circles and has 46 admirers. Let's take a look at her shop and see how she has done that and consider some suggestions for improving her already shining record.

If you are looking for knitted and or crocheted shawls, caps, scarves, or even pillows, you will want to visit this shop. Joyce uses materials such as alpaca, wool, novelty yarn, beads and ribbon plus more.

Party Time Any Time Free Lace Scarf

Let's discuss some of the aspects of her shop. Her pictures are crystal clear as you will see. She does close-ups so that you can see detail. She has her items departmentalized. Like things with like things.
Her descriptions create mind pictures and fill in all the details that the pictures don't cover.
If I have anything to offer here it would be to make the title of the item descriptive using words that hopefully would come up in a search, and perhaps save those catchy names for the first of the description. Many shop owners use their descriptions for sales pitches and stories and your titles might fit right in with that type of use. A descriptive title might say something like, Knitted Lace Scarf in Purple, Fuchsia, Pink and White. It's just a suggestion, but we want our items to come up in a search, the end desire being a sale.

Scottie is a Hottie
Fleece Pillow

Fleece pillow cover measures 16.25 by 16.25 inches. The design is the
same on the front and back. Pillow insert for you to purchase is 16 by
16 inches. Colors are pink, light grey. Smaller Scottie dogs are dark
brown. The closure is a zipper as seen in picture, it is offset and
measures an opening of 13 inches. to fit your insert, fold in half and
slide it into the opening. Zip up and enjoy. Monitors are different.
Colors appear darker then they really are.
I have limited amount of this fleece so when they are gone, that is it.
This pillow is adorable, the description above, is excellent, and Joyce's title is too cute. "Scottie Is A Hottie Fleece Pillow". Love it. Imagine it as the first line of the description. Try this on for a title: Throw Pillow Pink, Gray and Brown Fleece Scottie Dog Motif. It's a suggestion.

Popcorn Spaced Out Mobius
with a Twist

We have here another of Joyce's creations, one of my favorites. She calls it Popcorn Spaced Out Mobius with a Twist. I don't really know what that is but I see it fits around the neck, it's beautiful, well made and a fair price. Looking through the shop I find that to be the guaranteed theme.

One thing I will mention here is that Joyce only used 9 of her tags and not one of them was #2grc. Let's take advantage of those tags, that's how we invite people to our shops. One other item I'd like to mention is the occasion box, Joyce put in Christmas, my concern about that is that a customer may think that it is strictly for Christmas when it is really good for all cold weather months. I personally leave that box empty on my listings but of course I never do anything that is for a particular holiday. I just don't like to limit my customer pool in anyway. Through the winter I would be wearing this beautiful item with everything in my wardrobe that it went with.

No Ouchies Here Scarf

"No Ouchies Here Scarf" , this is a beauty, for all ages and all occasions. The colors are lovely and I can feel it's softness. The description is right-on and the price is comparable. You can't go wrong with this item.
Joyce used only 10 of her 18 tags and again didn't use her team tag. Shame...Shame....

There is not a lot of advice I can give to an almost perfect shop. The banner is cheerful and eye catching, true to the shop name. It's a great place to shop, with so many selections I had trouble making up my mind what I liked the best.

Let's look at a few minor things that might help to increase sales...
1. Use all 18 tags - check shop stats for what words or phrases that are being used, do a google search yourself and find out what words it takes to get you to your shop.
2. Use descriptive words in your titles
3. Use team tag #2grc on all your items so that it will come up in a search by us
4. Tweet - use team tag #2grc on all your tweets so that team members will be able to retweet your tweets
5. Add International Shipping or at least a few places like Canada, Britain.
6. Try to make a treasury once a month, when you advertise for others they will return the favor
7. Change your Featured Items often and always promote them when you do
8. Go into your Activity often and check it out. Get into more circles, favorite more items, this gets more item views and shop views with really no work on your part.
9. Take advantage of our teams clicking group, again helping others will win you their favors in return.

All in all you have a beautiful shop, and you are doing a great job on the big issues. Your product is wonderful, your pictures are beautiful, prices are comparable. Pick one or two things suggested to work on and see if your sales don't increase.